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DENIAL: Biden refuses to negotiate and demands a clean debt ceiling deal, saying there is no legal or conceptual basis for a default. This is both completely true and totally irrelevant. The GOP is determined to hold the economy hostage for . . . something.

ANGER: The House GOP finally comes up with a ransom note, which virtually everyone acknowledges will not resemble the outline of an agreement. Biden still refuses to negotiate. Everyone is angry with everyone else.

BARGAINING: Having failed to pick off stray GOP votes, Biden begins to negotiate.

DEPRESSION: We’re getting close to the deadline, and things aren’t looking good. Say goodbye to your 401(k), boys and girls.

ACCEPTANCE: A deal is reached. Things get really interesting from here.

Mitch McConnell’s view of the working Constitution is a halfway house to illiberal democracy, but his tactical sense is very keen, and must be respected. He has said all along that the debt ceiling will be raised by a bipartisan vote. It appears as of today that he will be right. What conclusions should we draw from that?

If his prediction comes true, it will mean that McCarthy is more willing to use Democratic votes to keep his job than I expected. Trump and the Freedom Caucus will make him pay dearly for it if he does.

In yet another misguided effort to win over the base, DeSantis is now attacking Trump from the right for being soft on crime, abortion, and public health mandates. For all of the reasons I have set out on several occasions, this approach isn’t going to work; Trump’s support from the base is unconditional, and focused more on style, identity issues, and entertainment value than legislative and administrative substance. But could these kinds of attacks drive Trump further to the right? And if so, would they present a problem for him in the general election?

The answer to both questions is yes. Trump prizes his connection to the base above everything except his ego, and he is prone to changing positions on the fly. It is easy to imagine him saying somethin spontaneous at a debate to make the reactionary crowd happy that would cost him dearly in the general election.

That is why, if Trump is smart, he will avoid the debates to the maximum extent possible.

When you think about it, reactionary politics and tech aren’t exactly a great match.

Life in the time of Trump.

DeSantis is a threat.

He’s so far right

He’s out of sight.

But can he win? You bet!

Ezra Klein essentially lays out Biden’s position on the debt ceiling negotiations in today’s NYT. It’s too risky to use the Fourteenth Amendment. You would be banking on Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, and who knows what they would do? Better to negotiate and hope for the best.

The problem with this approach is that, for the reasons I have described in several previous posts, no reasonable compromise can be reached without putting McCarthy’s gavel in jeopardy. Either the negotiations will fail, because a large faction of House Republicans won’t support the deal, or McCarthy will have to rely on Democratic votes to keep his job, which will be very uncomfortable for him.

Klein doesn’t trust the Supreme Court. I get that. But will you get a fairer hearing from the Freedom Caucus? Do you trust McCarthy and Matt Gaetz more than John Roberts?

I certainly don’t. In the real world, Biden will have to hope and pray that the pressure to settle will peel off a handful of GOP votes just before we hit the wall. If that doesn’t work, it is surrender, chaos, or the Fourteenth Amendment.

Note to my readers: I will be on vacation until Friday. Regular posts will resume either late Friday or Saturday.

George Santos is a self-admitted liar. The resume he used to get elected was completely fabricated. Now, he has been indicted. He is an embarrassment to Republican Party, which wants to see the back of him as soon as possible. But everything I’ve said about him in this post is also true of Trump, who remains the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination. Why are these apparently similar men being treated so differently by GOP voters?

The average reactionary voter sees Trump as the indispensable man: the only person, in spite of his innumerable personality flaws, who is tough, smart, and aggressive enough to save them from cultural annihilation at the hands of the libs. His lies and outrages are, in their eyes, proof that he is firmly on their side, and won’t be flipped by the establishment. Santos, on the other hand, is just a guy. He is consequently judged by the standards that bind all of the rest of us.

Obama apparently told CBS News a few days ago that the proliferation of media, and the loss of gatekeepers, is partially responsible for our political instability. The reliably wrong Rich Lowry disagrees; he thinks the issue is a fundamental difference of opinion within the American public, which is merely amplified (not created) by the media. Could he possibly be right this time?

No. It is true, of course, that there have been paranoid extremists within the GOP as long as I can remember–think the John Birch Society here. Media gatekeepers, however, mostly kept their opinions out of public view, so millions of people who didn’t experience what they considered left-wing oppression in their daily lives didn’t believe their culture was under an existential threat. Today, social media outlets proliferate extreme arguments through algorithms; from that point, Fox News picks them up, and they become unquestioned facts for the vast Fox audience within days. On the left, Twitter has given undue publicity to woke opinions, thereby driving both parties away from the center, although that may change with the new ownership. That would not have happened when I was growing up.

Obama knows you can’t unring the bell; he wasn’t suggesting that Fox News and the internet should be censored. It is the right, not the left, that is advocating the legal suppression of unorthodox opinions. You can also make a plausible argument that blocking extreme positions is undemocratic and adverse to the public interest. On the whole, however, Obama’s nostalgic view of media gatekeepers was completely defensible.

A: He ran for president in 2024 as a more electable and competent version of Trump, not realizing that what the base really wanted was swagger, outrage, and entertainment, not legislation and methodical administration.

Q: Who is Ron DeSantis?

Today’s NYT tells us that car prices remain historically high even though the supply chain issues have been resolved because the manufacturers and dealers have found a low volume, high margin business model to be extremely profitable. In other words, yet another example of the pandemic savings of wealthy people fueling inflation.

Once again, the Fed has no answers for this. Interest rate increases will not solve the problem.

The current debt ceiling negotiations can only result in a reasonable compromise if at least one of the following three things is true:

1. MAGA Republicans are selfless patriots who are willing to put self-interest and ideology aside for the good of the country;
2. McCarthy has such a strong hold on them, they will fall into line regardless of their ultimate objectives; or
3. McCarthy is willing to use Democratic votes to remain Speaker.

History already tells us that #1 and #2 may be true on the planet Zoltan, but not here. #3 is highly unlikely. Then what?

Barring the use of the Fourteenth Amendment, either Biden surrenders, or we go over the cliff. With the first option, Biden forfeits his legacy, the left is completely demoralized, the spending cuts cause a recession, and Trump is our next president. With the second option, we have a worldwide economic catastrophe, Biden is blamed, and Trump is our next president.

So why does Biden keep insisting that the Fourteenth Amendment won’t work? It may not be perfect, but it’s certainly a better option than surrender or default.

I don’t get it. I just don’t. What is he thinking?

As I noted in a previous post, Ted Cruz ran as a pious evangelical in 2016, presumably because he thought people like him made up at least a plurality of the GOP electorate. That wasn’t an unreasonable assumption–I believed it back then, as well–but it was incorrect. Trump was running alone in a white nationalist lane, and it turned out he had the plurality. That plurality, if anything, has increased in size since the Trump presidency.

For the most part, DeSantis, unlike Cruz, has been running in the Trump lane; he has portrayed himself as a more competent and electable version of Trump, not something fundamentally different. In recent days, however, he has started to focus a bit on abortion in an effort to distinguish himself from the man on golf cart. If this continues, the Cruz analogy will make more sense.

There are two glaring problems with running in Cruz country. First, Cruz lost. Second, if you’re a GOP voter and you are motivated mostly by your feelings on abortion, why would you pick DeSantis over Mike Pence? The Cruz lane is already occupied.

We’re at the first GOP presidential debate. Trump isn’t there, but his fan base is. They’re angry, and they’re ready to rumble.

The first question is for DeSantis. It goes something like this: “You’ve made electability the focus of your campaign, but that only makes sense logically if Trump lost the 2020 election. Are you conceding that Biden won the last election?”

DeSantis predictably refuses to answer the question. Using a time-honored GOP tactic, he attacks the moderator instead. He accuses her of being divisive and says that he is only interested in beating Joe Biden. Channeling his inner Mark McGwire, he insists that he won’t talk about the past.

The crowd is having none of it. There are plenty of boos and catcalls from the audience. The other candidates then pile on, essentially accusing DeSantis of being an unprincipled wimp.

Is America impressed? I doubt it.

If you watch NBC News these days, you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled into Fox programming. The telecast is full of stories about the chaos at the border. Conditions look grim. Biden is blamed for it by both the left and the right. Is this fair?

There are two things to keep in mind here. First of all, Biden only has the legal authority and the resources granted to him by Congress. Second, even though the asylum seekers are living in difficult conditions, when they are interviewed, they say they would rather be here than back home. That means only a regime of extreme cruelty would be enough to deter them from coming.

My message on the subject is simple. If you’re not: (a) willing to openly embrace a Trumpian program of savagery at the border; (b) ready to provide Biden with far more money for law enforcement and administration; or (c) proposing a specific plan to use existing resources far more efficiently, then you have nothing useful to offer on the subject, and you would be wise to STFU.

It will be very difficult for the Ukrainians to retake the land bridge to Crimea, given their manpower disadvantage and the strength of the Russian defenses. Nevertheless, it has to be tried, because the benefits of success are immense. Ukraine would have more access to the Black Sea coast and would be in a position to attack Crimea at any time. Putin would see that the greatest prize of the war was in jeopardy; he might be inclined to negotiate to keep it. That could lead to a reasonable end to the war.

Using an attack on Crimea as diplomatic leverage is one thing; actually taking it would be something else entirely. It is not clear that America is willing to make enough of an investment in Ukraine to accomplish it. Neither is it obvious that the residents of Crimea, most of whom are ethnic Russians, would see the death and destruction that follows as “liberation.” Finally, Putin might be driven to escalate, either by using nukes or by attacking NATO supply lines, in an effort to keep his precious trophy on his bookshelf. In short, there are serious risks that may outweigh the rewards.

In my opinion, the best way to handle this is to go step by step. Try taking the land bridge, and if the Ukrainians succeed, see if Putin is then open to serious negotiations. If he is, great. If not, get ready for the next big offensive.